Book Stores

Number of book stores from the Town Pages (telephone directory). Based on the Town Pages, there are 14,609 book stores in Japan which is 11.46 book stores per 100 thousand population. Fukui has the greatest number of book stores per 100 thousand population, with 19.55 per 100 thousand population. Tokushima, Niigata, Ishikawa and Kochi follow. Almost all of top 10 prefectures are prefectures on the Japan Sea coast or Shikoku. On the other hand, there are few book stores in Kyushu and the Pacific coast.

There are few book stores in the three major metropolitan areas, believed to be due to small-sized book stores being picked out and replaced by large-sized book stores. This is believed to be why there are few book stores in areas around Tokyo where the amounts for purchasing magazines and books were high.

The correlative ranking shows no correlation with the amount spent for purchasing magazines and books, and there are not necessarily many books stores in areas where reading is popular. On the other hand, it is positively correlated with Elementary Schools and the number of supermarkets. In view of the point that these rankings are influenced by geological features and the spheres of livelihood, it can be said that there are many book stores in areas where there are small-sized living spheres.